Digital healing

2021-01-29 11:00:00

DDR has saved me. Red Gatorade saved me. Friends saved me. Dogs have saved me.

What does all that mean?

Well, I made this blog due to wanting a fresh start.

Digital healings....

Most of all, Susumu Hirasawa is saving me.

I will explain how psychosis has affected me later, when the pain is far behind me and I can look back and say...

'Wow, I got through the hardest time of my life and really flourished again.'

Out of the depths of misery I've been in, I'm finally rediscovering what it means to be happy.

Nobody has a right to comment on whether someone else is happy. It doesn't matter what standards you judge it on. What they say on Twitter, promotions, how many followers or gloating over a relationship. That feeling of happiness is an internal calm only you can know.

Psychosis affected my ability to do art. Maybe I shouldn't be pointing it out, but this is my site and I want to be flipping honest.

I've needed a break from work...

...and all other expectations on me as an 'artist', in order to give my brain the time to heal it deserves.

It's been 6 months. For a long time, I was counting the months in utter shame. I am not longer torturing myself, that is torturing myself with the idea that my wounded spirit needs to hurry up it's mending process.

I moved in with my awesome dad and have done already 5-ish sailing trips around South Australia. During this time I began to ask myself...what other things do I love?

There was...Japanese language, writing fiction and non-fiction, fitness,outdoors, gaming, especially DDR, trying to make new friends...

I was firstly searching for expression. Just any way to just communicate what I'd been through, maybe it didn't have to be visual art. An artists' spirit cannot be killed, no matter how hard it gets beat up.


Kill the old self Gilles

When I focused on writing my story, it soon blossomed into a massive 25,000 word document in under a week. Although not all of it is that well thought out, I sat on it a few months. Where could I share this? Is it too traumatic to share.

Nobody want's to hear my perverted insane fantasies, and yet that's what I want to hear from others.

Above all, I knew what I was sharing was intimate, but didn't I want to be heard? Just by anyone. One person?

When I write I feel free.

It took 5 seconds to make a basic Wordpress site..

I also have become immersed in DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) on the A20+ machine in the Beachouse at Glenelg. It reminded me of the joys of fitness, nostalgia and music that I am fond of, as it features Touhou Project and many J-core and EDM style artists I love..

When I picked up DDR after my accident, I felt a shame wash over me with every play because I was struggling with this cloud of depression, shame and worthlessness.

I started to say, fuck this shit. I love DDR and deserve happiness.

A happiness of chugging a red Powerade and flinging sweat everywhere, while nearby children watch my enthusiastic stomping with gaping confused faces.

Man that red Powerade. On the list of things I could drink gallons of it's orange juice, gin and tonic and red Powerade.

Month after month I kept going back to play to the point the staff began to know me. I just love DDR. There was no shame involved with me spending money and trying every time, if I enjoyed it, it's worth it. I felt less empty, less wrong and more....healed? I've found a bit of community for DDR here in Adelaide as well. I am not very good and yet...

That's healing.

After thinking about the other things I loved, I felt I finally gave in to what everyone had been telling me.

I am not just one thing.

I am not Bipolar Disorder Type 1

Nor am I just art.

Am I my mistakes, my mania, anger, sadness or loneliness?

I'm more than that, right. What more of me is there?


There will always be a new dog in your life. That is the cycle of death and rebirth.

I am not just one thing. I am honestly, sensitivity, a natural vibe, wackiness, dedication, integrity, intelligence and curiosity as much as my sloppiness, passion, perversion and lust. So many English words to try and explain a human. Yet I look for words.

I have never seen other people in such a compartmentalised way.

In fact I enviously have seen other people for their humour, intelligence, confidence, joy and spirit that is often hard to put into words. It is easy to slap a label on like 'artist' and have that embedded into your soul, as something that makes you 'special'.

Yet, for all these months I felt completely worthless, worrying about what people would think if they knew I was struggling with drawing.

When someone says 'nice art' have I always been assuming that was a compliment on my very soul.

Yes, it feels like your soul is heard if you are communicating in art, and don't we all want to be heard? It doesn't mean you can't communicate in other mediums. You also can work on feeling the strength and beauty, that you usually express in art, within you instead.

Whenever I feel this pain cutting into me, I try to remind myself I'm more than one thing. Above all, I'm a human born here for no reason, other than to to hopefully give love and be loved. Isn't that all we can do.

Thus I've tried to be stronger. I've tried to find outlets for this pain. I praise myself for the little achievements, like getting through a day being kind to myself. I have always beat myself up, more than most people do apparently.

As I write this the bitter tears well up, because I know I have wanted to change for so long. I've been forced to change my mental attitude in a very sudden and harsh way.

Proof it's been harsh is the way everyone I've told replies 'I can't even imagine how scary that was for you'.

I made a new Instagram, because it is dishonest to people following me for my art over 6 months old. I do not know why people can be bothered following me though.

It was painful being on an account where I'm ashamed of the old images, because it represents a me that is honestly not me anymore. That 'me' however, isn't better. She didn't know suffering, humility, how to tame mental habits, instead she built self worth around skills.

I started to notice massive improvements only recently and somehow just enjoying drawing more. As if the circuits in my brain that 'enjoy drawing' and 'enjoy raunchy ideas' and 'skill of drawing' are all necessary to come together and create something half decent.

The digital world makes it hard, because we see our life as a chronological timeline. Lets be honest guys, our brains have been wired to perceive our lives like a big scrolling Google photos roll. We perceive time and our lives as something can shove away in a folder when it becomes unsightly.

My bipolar incident is captured in my camera roll. It is there. My ranting mania, my absolute ugliest time of my life that I didn't ask to happen. Thanks to technology, I shared that and other people can see. It is a stain in my mental and digital history.

I deactivated Facebook, have killed off my old site under my real-name, made a new Instagram that represents my filthy mind more. I would like to kill my real name off the internet for now.

It's hard having a name like a James Bond femme fatale.

I wanted to be proud and professional under that name, but unfortunately this James Bond chick is just a hornie.

I have been mousy about sharing even any doodle for months, out of terror what I was creating wasn't good enough. Nah stuff it, I have a new ghost in this shell.

Hobby art is good enough.

I love drawing in my sketchbook, photographing it, and colouring in MediBang on my phone, adding some weird text collage bits to it in the PicsArt app. True art.

It is a digital purification. I want people to follow me for what I have to say now, for what I can draw now. I am honestly doing my best.

When I have to take my morning and night meds, I don't contemplate it too much. It doesn't make me less human.

So I am going back to university soon, but not for another month. I will be a 'mature student' which causes me a bit of anxiety.


Salty sea dog named Haruka

I feel my old bones creak and sigh. I sink into a resigned contentedness as I watch the setting sun over Kangaroo Island, from my family's insanely luxurious house, while listening to Susumu Hirasawa. Life is alright.

Time assaults us with towering waves.